Synopsis: In 2293, the world as we know it has long vanished.
Mankind is divided between those that are the have-alls, including immortality,
who stay in their own society and everyone else, the Brutals. Some of the Brutals are partially controlled
by a god named Zardoz to be Exterminators, who follow the decree of "the
gun is good, the penis is evil" and kill off their fellow Brutal. One such
exterminator called Zed (Connery)
however manages to get into the Immortal's homeland, and whilst Immortals
Consuella (Rampling) and May (Kestelman) argue whether he should be
studied or disposed of, Zed himself may be the giver of death to the Immortals
as well.

Zardoz as a film, if one wants to get past Connery wearing red
bikini briefs, has so many ideas vying for attention in only a hundred minutes
or so that it does overwhelm the viewer with a lot to take in. As a narrative
it's a lot more concise than its reputation suggests, but there's a lot that's
absence in the synopsis above of what Zed witnesses and is part of, some of
which has only a few minutes of time to be brought up causing one to be
continually barraged with concepts. Boorman,
unable to adapt The Lord of the Rings novels but having success with Deliverance (1972), had the moment in
his career that thankfully still happens today when producers give a director
carte blanche to make whatever film they want. Even if it's a little
unconventional or flat-out strange, no one has thankfully learnt from the
mistakes of the past. They're a divisive subgenre, but from Richard Kelly'sSouthland Tale (2006) to Steven
Spielberg's1941 (1979), they're
some of the most interesting entries in a director's CV, where for every
mistake that might be there, every overlong and indulgent aspect, there's
plenty of ideas being thrown out and plenty of inspiration to burn.

From http://theslaughteredbird.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/zardoz2.jpg

Zardoz is about the perils of class, of the community authority
over individualism, masculinity against femininity only to suddenly put the
macho Connery in a wedding dress and skewer the gender politics. For me as well
there's a surprising mood of this representing the sixties counter culture
dying slowly and excruciatingly as well, turning into a repressed and
emotionally numbed society in the Immortals, melancholic to the point some have
become like somnambulists cast away into the outskirts. These sorts of films flummox
one in terms of their politics. Case in point for an example, it would be
understandably seen that Zardoz is
misogynistic as the macho former James Bond overpowers a land ruled by women
and men who can't even grow a beard like him, one having to make do with
drawing it on and thus proving a felt tip pen still exists in the future. But
then there's, again, the image of Connery in a wedding dress. Gender seems
useless to the Immortals anyway where they're utterly asexual, no sexuality be
it hetero or gay, where its explicitly stated the men cannot have erections
anymore. The macho barbarian meanwhile develops humility, wisdom and kills his
old self metaphorically in a hall of mirror sequence. Like other films like
this overstuffed with ideas the creators, while creating something that's give
the producer a heart attack about trying to sell, manage between every muddy or half-finished idea to create plenty to
be interested of in this conflict in their prickliness.

From http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mpBGa4P5jUo/TOxm3OehuEI/AAAAAAAAF7A/cU0kUAwLVTw/s1600/zardoz4.jpg

It helps that there intentional
humour in Zardoz as well, a
willingness to find absurdity in itself as well as purport serious ideas. Like Nicol Williamson as Merlin in Excalibur (1981), John Boorman can appreciate a magnificently succulent piece of ham,
be it Niall Buggy as Arthur Frayn opening
the film with a monologue from his felt tip marked mouth suggesting the
audience are puppets like him, to John
Alderton with his odd high voiced intonations as Friend, eventually doomed
to be alongside the Renegades, those who still cannot die but are punished for
thought crimes through rapid aging and senility. Connery himself despite his original costume, which is more
ridiculous for the ammo belts and ponytail than the bikini briefs, is the
anchor that stops the film from becoming silly, not continually asking
questions about the world around him but the usually silent witness to the
strange behaviour of the Immortals. While the shadow of the Bond films, not long before Zardoz, makes Connery's casting even stranger and unpredictable, the result is
less an embarrassment but an odd and curious sight from a decade of cinema
where this sort of unpredictability was more common.

From http://lh4.ggpht.com/_pQyvcBbJ0Fs/TJY0wY4chuI/AAAAAAAACn8/XyPiRtw0bJw/image_thumb10.png?imgmax=800

Sadly the film does betray itself
to gassy philosophy and Connery trying
to fight (wobble through?) the mentioned hall of mirrors, which is the only
part of the film where it lives up to its notoriety. It suffers in these parts
from the vagueness that exists in modern spiritualism outside the cinema even
today, where ten words are used instead of only one. Barring this, Zardoz acquits itself to sci-fi and
fantasy ideas which, ironically, are still pertinent now.

From http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7t27aChMq1qluw2co1_500.png

Technical Detail:

A low budget film shot near to
his actual house in Ireland, Boorman
could've easily made a film entirely of its time, one in look that would've
dated badly even if that sort of aesthetic appealed to me anyway. This isn't
the case however as the aesthetic is instead one of its best aspects,
beautifully put together. It's a mashing of mashing of naturalism in the
outdoor environments infused with available buildings, cottages and barns, and
poppy acid infused costumes and colours from the sci-fi films from this era. Everything
that is of its time - from Connery's
bikini briefs to the candy coloured peasant garb of the Immortals - is
intentionally exaggerated and within the confines of a visual template that's
very carefully considered. It's a colourful film, but not just in terms of its
more unconventional sets but also natural colour in general, from a struggle
taking place in a sewing room full of multiple colours of thread to the strange
sight of green bread being broken at a dinner table.

When you do get to the
aforementioned unconventional sets, they're something to behold. Images of amoeba
and primitive life printed on the back of an interrogation room Zed is being
questioned in. Nude bodies of Immortals, preserved in glass tanks like living
wallpaper, being re-grown and cultivated. An archive of the Tate Galley's
paintings and corridors of statues of what Friend tells Zed were god and
goddesses who died of boredom. No matter how indulgent and erratic these
passion projects can be, production design is rarely terrible for them and Boorman has shown a great deal of
artistic inspiration in the films I've seen of his, shown here especially. Even
if you still find Zardoz gobbledegook,
all the content visually is used to carry on the ideas rather than leave them
behind. A testament of this is the sequence where Zed is taught an entire world
of knowledge, a mix of languages and references spoken aloud as in a meticulous
way various images are superimposed on actresses' and Connery's bodies like tattoos. It's an exceptional moment, poetry
and mathematics intertwining into a tapestry but uses it to tell a story or
mood, one of many moments where the campiness can be pushed back and the
serious artistic premise of the film does shine through.

From http://www.flickeringmyth.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/40A-600x302.jpg

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low

The only real disappointment one
might find in Zardoz is that it's
quite conventional and concise in its themes if you strip away all the arty
language. It's not a film that enters into unconventional plot structure or
fully evokes the mood of an esoteric film like those made by Alejandro Jodorowsky. As a result,
contrary to what some might think, Zardoz
is one of the more "normal" films I've covered on the blog, where
when you stripped the flourishes away it's Aldous
Huxley'sBrave New World (1931) and
L. Frank Baum'sThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) skewered into a strange
direction.

What does get it on the list are
ultimately the flourishes that even back in the seventies, before I was born, would
cause people to scratch their heads, a giant floating head moulded from Boorman's head but looking like Karl Marx the first amongst them,
gliding along with an airless grace in the clouds. A young Charlotte Rampling musing about the male erection as a naked Connery is shown erotic images to induce
one. The Renegades, elderly and senile men and women, in a perpetual party in
dinner suits and night gowns rampaging around a dilapidated hotel. The madness
of the end, where there's chaos, orgies and eventually a mass genocide welcomed
by the victims wanting to die. That the films still manages to be utterly
serious and profound makes these moments even more strange and qualifiable for
the Abstract List.

From http://rowereviews.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/3/2/12321416/7899811.jpg?725

Personal Opinion:

Revisiting Zardoz is significant because I saw the film when I was young. Like
director Ben Wheatley on the extras
of the new Arrow Video release, I
encountered Zardoz on television.
God knows when but in hindsight, I wonder whether this was the film responsible
for turning me onto the oddball cinematic tastes I have now. I could recount,
while not the whole monologue, the line "the gun is good, the penis is
evil" perfectly in my head for decades, and the final image, of a time
lapsed metaphor for life to death, was burnt into my memory for that length of
time. What stands out seeing the film again after all this time is that,
weren't it not for the moment the dialogue becomes more esoteric and New Age by
the end, Zardoz is quite a sombre
story which has a lot more going for it that being an utter disaster. Whilst
not as poetic as Brave New World is
depicting someone in an alien, oppressive environment, what you get is a film
that's on the cusp of campiness but that can be taken seriously.

No comments:

Post a Comment

"I could go on for hours with more examples. The list is endless. You probably never gave it a thought, but all great films, without exception, contain an important element of no reason. And you know why? Because life itself is filled with no reason." - Rubber (2010)

About Me

I am 28 years old and hail from England. For the last few years I have been a growing fan of cinema and have decided to take the next step into blogging about it and any other tangents that about the things I'm interested in I get onto.